My Fall Break...

So the past week was our Fall Break, a whole week off to unwind and take a break from our busy semester. I had plans to rest up and get back into riding instead of running. My body had still been wrecked from the half marathon that was weeks ago. I planned on enjoying the changing of the leaves and the wonderful fall weather. Little did I know that this was going to be one of the most tireing weeks of my life.

The first few days started out on track, getting to sleep in a little more than usual and not having to worry about class. The weather was a little cold and wet, normal for this time, but the wind was kind of annoying. Those are things I can look past though. On my ride however things were not going as planned, my legs had no energy what so ever. Every time I would pedal it seemed that I was going backwards. This running thing seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I see it as sabatoge.

I saw some wild turkey on my ride, that is always interesting to see. It gets me in the mood for Thanksgiving!


Since my legs were not wanting to work, I stopped an took pictures of the fall colors. These are supposed to make the people back home jealous!

Cyclocross season is starting so that means that all or most riding needs to be done off-road. There are a tone of sick gravel roads to ride around here!


One night I was hanging out with Eric in my room, I went out into the hall for a few minutes to work on my bike. Eric stayed behind in my room, munching on some animal crackers that he had brought from his room. Little did I know that he was doing more than munching...
Eric left before I finished my work in the hall and as he left he told me he left "a surprise" in my room. He left more than a surprise, more like 20 of them...

I didn't notice them right away, but he had placed animal crackers all over my room! You have to hand it to Eric, he got me good. I found a good majority of them but he said that I will be finding them for weeks and he's right. Every so often I find a new one in some random spot.


These are just a few of his hiding spots. Believe me, there are many many more!



My good friend Paul has been teaching me how to ride his motorcycle. Something I have been wanting to learn for a LONG time. We figured that since most of the students had gone home, one of the parking lots would be a good place to learn.

This is about my 3rd lesson, it's always good to just stick to a small area. I have no need to be on the open road... yet! Rebecca got to go for a ride on the back once I was done doing laps of the parking lot. Paul took her on some sick roads. Being on the back of a motorcycle is probably one of the most interesting things ever! If you haven't done it I suggest you try!

Rebecca and I went to Virginia and rode on the Creeper Trail. It's a dirt trail that goes along an old railroad grade. It's great for all ages and level of riders.

Luckily the weather was on our side, it was warm and sunny. The colors of the trees were more vibrant than ever because of the sun. The views from the top of the trail were awesome!

Lots of cool little places to stop!



This is when my week turned exhausting. The B&B that I work for needed me to work during the week, which is fine. But I was not counting on the extra work that I ended up doing. Luke, our coach, knew I was on campus for break and asked if I could help work on our cyclocross course. I said sure, I love cross and want to do anything I can to better myself and help out the team.

We met out at the course at about 8:30ish and it was cold and windy. I figured that would be fine because we would get hot from working. For some reason I didn't forsee this as being as hard as it was, my mistake... We hacked through tons of brush and thorns, we raked up all the excess and cleared new paths for riding.

Then we dug up extra dirt to make off-camber mounds to make the course as hard as possible. This is where my body started to hurt, I then realized how out of shape my upper body/core is. Then we started making an new stair/run up section. My arms and back were so tired and we hadn't even really finished half of what we needed to do. But after 6 hours we called it a day...

As soon as I layed down to relax my wholoe body stiffened up! I was too tired to stretch! The next day we went back at it, clearing more trails and taping them off. We then decided to build a little "fly over" out of some wood. We had no real set of plans for how to build it, Luke said to just start and it will come together. Sure enough after some time we had a pretty legit looking ramp built. It was even sturdy enough to ride!
That was another full day of work, which was not any easier seeing as how I was so sore an exhausted from the day before. But we got it done then went out to test our new course! I met Luke and Nate out on the course and we started riding, within a few minutes I was getting dropped. My body did not want to ride! I tried to hang on to them but couldn't. I gave up and rode back to campus to eat and curl up into a ball.
The cold weather mixed with my previous exhausten made me feel totally drained. I had never been so sore and so tired in my life. But I knew that all that work would make me stronger after a few days rest. Also with all that hard work our team has a sick new course to train on a get ready for nationals! Here are some of the awesome new additions!



Some of the sections in action!





Well that in a nutshell was my fall break. I don't know why I was so tired and exhausted, apart from the long days working on the course. I guess not really getting to rest from the weeks before break? Or I'm just extremly weak and a baby, I think that's what most of you were thinking, right? I hope not!

But I did get a few days of rest in and I feel much much better, I need to get ready to start racing cross, my first race will probably be in the coming week. I hope I'll be ready for it! Our team practices are starting up tomorrow, that should be a good indication of how the races should go. Sorry this was a long one, it was a long week...

I'll be posting more when I get it.

My Apologies...

I know I have said this numerous times, I am sorry for the lack of postings... My excuse is that I was finishing up my wonderful internship, which I miss, and I had RA training and getting the building ready for students to move in. Then classes started and I plan on graduating in May so I've been kind of busy with my Senior year.

The time has come to be reunited with my loyal fans, who I'm sure have been waiting patiently for months for the latest installment of my awesome adventures and stories. Now it has been a while since my last post so bear with me, this post could take some time to read...

So most of you know that I spent the summer working to save up any an all money to get a car. I spent all summer surfing Craigslist, calling and going to see any thing with 4 wheels that was in my price range. Well after all the searching and surfing, I found what I was looking for. This is my Jeep!

Friends of ours were moving out of the country and needed to get rid of their Jeep, they heard that I was in the market and we struck up a deal. The problem was that it was in Ft. Lauderdale and I was already in Banner Elk at school. So I had a rare window of opportunity, the coming up weekend was Labor Day so I had a 3 day weekend. I was able to fly home and spend the day getting the car cleaned and ready then drove back up to school with my dad the next day. We made it back safely, unfortunately I got sick somewhere in between Johnson City Airport and driving back to Banner Elk...

The car drove great the entire 12 hour drive, then it was fine when I took my dad to the airport in the morning. I tried to go to Dollar General that night to get some cold medicine and my battery died... I had to get a new battery after having it for less then 48 hours. Oh well, it was an easy fix!

After I got back an got over my illness Rebecca and I loaded up the Jeep with the bikes and went to Todd to take an easy ride. We had to cross train that day since we were still training for our half marathon. Todd is a great place to ride, it's flat and next to a "lazy river' that looks so inviting after a good ride. It had been a while since we rode there and it's always a good time!


Cross season is getting close! I stripped my road bike and built up my beloved cyclocross bike! My Senior project is going to be a documentary about me racing cyclocross and trying to get a spot on the nationals team, so wish me luck! Cross is one of my favorite cycling disciplines, so rest assured that videos and pictures will be posted from all my races this season!


Like i posted before my hiatus, Rebecca and I had been training for a half marathon. Well the time had come for us to put all that training to the test! Our race was September 26th in Johnson City TN we did the Bluegrass Half Marathon. The night before the race it was sprinkling a little, I figured it would clear up by morning. WRONG! The whole drive down it was pouring and the time that we sat in the car waiting for the race it to start it poured. Then the whole 13.1 miles it was pouring and in the low 60's. Besides the weather we did awesome! My goal, apart from finishing, was to do it under 2 hours. My time was 1:51. Rebecca finished in 2 hours even and got 4th in her age group!

Our numbers!


Our reward for finishing!

After the race, we chowed down on a bunch of free samples that were provided by Earth Fare, who sponsored the race. I think if you do any half marathons or marathon make sure it's catered by a health food store! Rebecca is ready for a full marathon but I think my running days are over for a while, I enjoyed running but I missed riding my bike with my friends. This wont be my last running event, but I need some mental relaxation from running.

There have been many more little stories that have happened, like me learning how to ride a motorcycle as one. I figured these would be enough to get you guys back in the swing of my writing. From this blog forth I will keep you posted on my happenings, with no giant break in between. Thanks for taking me back into your internet surfing world. Till next time...

This Just In...

So things I've been doing, I'll try and keep it short and sweet.

The tour has been going on and I've been watching it everyday. The first week of it was pretty intense. Lots of crashes, the Yellow jersey has changed hands and spirits and bones have been broken. Things are settling down and the top 10 is basically gonna be the same at the finish, maybe some riders will move up or drop back. But this is the Tour and anything can happen. Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador have already made the tour amazing with two great stages, and they have many to come. Armstrong is out of contention for the win, I think this is a good thing actually. Now the tv will focus on the real race at hand and not just Armstrong. Don't get me wrong, Lance is a legend and an amazing rider. This is another generations tour though and it's time for new names to shine. It would be awesome if he could get a stage win in though!

Here's a pic of Brent being interviewed before the start of a stage. It is so cool to have an LMC alumni in the biggest race in the world. He is the first but I am sure he will not be the last. He is having a great Tour and I'm sure this wont be his last one, he will be there for years to come! Go Brent!!!


I got a pair of Toms shoes. I had been on the fence about getting a pair for a while. I found them in the mall and tried them on many many times, just to make sure I really liked them. The store I tried them on didn't have the style I wanted, plus they were way too expensive there. I found them online like half the price and the style I wanted. I am pretty happy with them ,they are light and it doesn't feel like I'm wearing a shoe. Which is good because I hate shoes. The company also donates a pair of shoes to a kid in need when you purchase a pair, so it's for a good cause too!


Last saturday I worked debark for the Carnival Freedom. If you have ever been on a cruise you know this process. Find your bags and get in a cab or get on the bus to the airport. That's it in a nutshell, sorry I just want to keep it short and sweet. After debark I got to go on board and take a short tour, I'd never been onboard before. It was great to actually see what the ships look like inside. It makes me want to be on the ship when it's not docked haha.



My loyal readers may have seen that Rebecca and I are training for a half marathon. Well my training hit a slight snag. My knee started bothering me about 2 weeks ago. So I took a break from running and did some hard rides to keep my fitness up. I also did some stretching to see if that would clear it up. From doing research online and asking a few people that know a thing or two, I kind of self diagnosed myself. The stretching helped a little bit but when I would get a few mins into my run the pain would come back. So I heard about this magical tape called Kinesio Tape. It's very popular with pro cyclists and other major athletes. I see it all over the Tour, many riders have been taped up due to the multiple crashes. This stuff works wonders, my knee felt great almost instantly. If you ever have any aches or pains I highly recommend it! I will be using this stuff from now on, for anything! I wonder how many uses it has? It could be just like duct tape, except not as sticky...


So that's the short and sweet version of what I've been up too. I will have a new post in the next few days, now that I can run again and will be doing a good amount of long rides. It's raining now so that is a good time to hit the sack, relaxing sounds of rain and thunder. That wont keep me from riding in the morning though, I've been praying for rain when I ride. It is so hot otherwise, you need it to stay the slightest bit cool. Well until next time...

Motorpacing...

So I think in an earlier post I said that I was borrowing a friends scooter while I'm home, if I didn't tell you I am now... So ya, I talked my dad into doing some pacing for me. For those of you who don't know what that is here's the skinny, a scooter or motorcycle or even a car sets the pace and you, being on a bike, draft off of them. It's good to build up leg speed and to simulate race speed.

So I head out to warm up and I told my dad to meet me on A1A. Well yesterday on my ride I got a flat and pulled out this long, thick thorn. So I had a decent hole in my tire from that, and something got in there 2 mins into todays ride. Flat again... I used my last CO2 yesterday and had to wait for my dad. I made him bring a pump because I knew something like this would happen... Here is a video of that.


So we fixed it and got on our way. It was a little tuff at first because getting through the traffic lights was annoying. But once we got a little north it was a straight shot. My legs felt good and I was able to get a good draft off my dad, I thought I wasn't going to be able too cause it's just so windy on the beach. We didn't go very long, we just wanted to get a feel for it and be able to read each others body language so we could be able to do it for longer sessions. Plus I'm gonna start filming some of this stuff for my omega, but that will be once we get down a solid feel for how each of us rides together. We don't want any crashes!

We did about 25 to 30 miles of a solid pace, we were going about 25 mph steady, I had him bump it up to 30 mph for a few minutes, just to test my legs. I was pretty tired from yesterdays ride. So it was a solid workout and experiment. I hope to be able to do this at least once a week from now on. It's a lot of fun and a great workout!

On another note the Tour de France starts saturday! I'm pumped, this is gonna be an awesome tour. So many big names are gonna be battling it out, and everyone is on such great form. My ex-teammate/ex-bobcat Brent Bookwalters is racing for Team BMC, he is gonna have a BIG job working for Cadel Evans. It was awesome watching Brent race the Giro, but the Tour is the mother of all races. Good luck!

Also my good friend and ex-teammate/ex-bobcat Andrew Talansky is going to the big show! Last week he won the U23 National Time Trial and has now signed a contract with Garmin-Transitions! I always knew he would make it and I'm sure we will see him in the Tour in the next two years! Way to go Andrew!

Well that's it for now, I hope everyone has a Happy 4th and I'll have a new post soon. Later...

Here and there...

So not much has changed, been working and training and trying not to die from the heat. I broke down and ordered a Road ID, the drivers here make riding and running a little dangerous so I figured it would be good to get. Also when I train back up at school on those back roads it would be good to have.
It's pretty cool, it feels like I am wearing a watch. I got green to match my LMC kit. It was kind of pulling the hair around my wrist, so I... well I shaved the are where it sits... I know, very strange. Here is a pic of it, I think you can see the area where I shaved it...


So I told you I was staying with friends when I go work in West Palm right? Well they had this cereal I have never heard of. It's called Weetabix and from what the box says it is from England. The cereal comes in brick form and you break it up and add fruit an milk. It has become my favorite cereal! This stuff is so good!!! I add some fruit, if I have it, and a little bit of honey. It is good with just honey if you don't have fruit. I found it at Publix and can't get over how good it is! Rebecca said Food Lion didn't have it so I'm hoping Lowes does. I'm sure Earthfare does but it's way too expensive there... If you can find it I suggest you try it!


So I had been doing some reading on running since I am fairly new to it. I saw a few articles talking about running barefoot and this interested me. I looked into it and there a good amount of people who run barefoot, they say it is healthy than running with shoes. Some say that the shoes ruin your natural foot form and causes damage to your heel since you tend to land on your heel when you run with shoes. It also shortens your strides so you don't waste as much energy.
So I decided to try it out, it wasn't half bad. They say not to do your normal long runs barefoot at first. So I did my normal run but held off the last half mile and ran that part barefoot, just to try it. They say you need to build your feet up a little before doing it as a normal thing. My feet felt good and I didn't get any cuts from glass or rocks, beginners luck haha. So I will try it again for a week and see how I like it. An article on it.

I took this on a evening run on the beach. The sun was going down behind all the charter boats, it was pretty nice! Then my phone died, there was a really great view from the top of the 17th ST bridge but I couldn't get it. Maybe next time...


Oh I also registered for the half marathon! So there is no turning back, it's official! Sunday September 26th in Johnson City is the big day! Check it out! Well that's it for now, I'm sure I will have something interesting again soon...

Been Very Busy...

Ok so sorry to my 10's of readers, I have been pretty busy with both my internships and other things. So here is an update...
I started my 2nd internship last week, I am working with 1600 AM WHTY in West Palm Beach, FL. The frequency used to be owned by Radio Disney but they went off the air. We now broadcast a mostly Haitian show and they are currently playing a good majority of the World Cup, since soccer is the national sport for Haiti.
The station is in West Palm which is more than an hour north of me, so I drive up here the night before and spend the night with some friends. They live about 25 mins. from the station so it works out great! I stay in west palm monday night and tuesday night and drive home wednesday afternoon when I get done with work.
It's a fun job, sadly i don't work were they broadcast from, the station is at another building, but that is soon to change. I work in the offices and we have a small studio that is not yet up and running, but it will be and they will broadcast out of here.


I have been running a lot lately, training for a half marathon. I just haven't really had time to ride either, I have to be at work early so that means I would have to get on the road by like 5 am if I wanted to ride. I can't really ride after work because then it is 100 degrees and I would die. But come hell or high water I will be riding my bike again, I will ride no matter how early or hot. I miss my bike and I need to get back to it.

Here is a picture to show how hot it is when I've been running. Sorry if it's kind of gross... This is the back of my shorts after a run. This is how bad I sweat when I run at 6 am, imagine what it's like if I did it in the middle of the day!?!?


These are some pics from the golf course my friends in West Palm live on. They live right off the 11th green and at night after dinner we go on the course and play with Leo, their basset hound. We toss a ball around and he will chase that thing for an hour or so. He's pretty funny!



This is from the 17th ST bridge in Ft. Lauderdale. I took this on an early am run, the sun had just started to come up. The bridge is my only form of a challenge when I run down here. It's hard to do hill work here when you are at sea level... But the bridge will do for now, it's actually pretty steep and long.


So apart from my two interenships and running and the occasional ride not much has been going on. I applied for a third job at William-Sonoma in the mall. It's a high end cooking store. They haven't called me back yet but as soon as I get done with work I am gonna head over there and see what the deal is. If most of you know me, you know it would be my dream to work there! I hope it works out.

Well I'm sorry for the lack of updates but I will get back on track, I couldn't blog while I was in West Palm because my friends do not have wifi. But I will make sure to post regularly now that I have my travel schedule all figured out. Well that's all for now, until something else...

Major Day

So Sunday I woke up at about 5 am to go meet my friend Chris. He told me about a group ride that was out in Weston, he said it can get pretty fast. I wanted to do some fast paced group rides to work on pack riding and such. So I got in the car and set off. It was 85 degrees at 6 am...

I get to Chris's house and follow him to the place where the group meets. We met at a starbucks out in Weston. The group ranged from me being the youngest to some middle age dudes to one older guy on a recumbent bike. They were nice and were all wondering how to prounounce the name of Lees-McRae on my kit.

Most of the guys were rockin tri bikes but that was cool. They were training for triathlons and such. Chris told me to watch out for the guy on the recumbent. He said well be cruising at like 23-25 mph and this dude will come flying by!







Apart from it being 100 degrees the ride was good. It started out slow but we eventually got the pace up. We still only ended up going about 23 mph. I ramped it up a little faster when it was my turn at the front but I ended up blowing most of the group. But the stronger guys stuck with me. I ended up blowing at the end because I thought the end was closer than it was so I was going pretty hard for longer than intended. I didn't know the roads since I had never been out west to ride.

Chris wasn't kidding though, that dude on the recumbent came flying by me when I was going about 25! I had no clue those things could go that fast! He was joking about getting a disc wheel for it, that would be nuts! He was wearing shimano sandles that had cleats on the bottom and you could clip in with them, nuts! We eneded up doing a little over 30 miles. So it was a good work out. I was glad with how I felt riding with a group and think I am ready for a race series I found here.

This was the temp when I got home at about 10 am...



I got home, showered, ate and put my compression socks on. I needed to recover for a 5k I was going to be doing in a few hours.


The 5k was in Miami and I hadn't registered yet so we had to boogie down there early. Traffic wasn't bad cause it was the weekend. We got there and I registered, my parents where gonna do the walking portion of it but we figured it would be way too expensive so they kind of snuck in and didn't pay, don't tell anyone...

My race number.


This race was chipped, meaning that they kept score with a chip. High tech!!!


I ran into a family friend and he has been running marathons for a few years so I figured if I stuck with him I'd be money. He told us to start on the 1st line, so I followed him.
This was part of the crowd behind me. Big group! I think there was close to 2,000 people.

The race started and my friend Bob almost trampled this 8 year old kid that was in the front, he kind of had no business being there, Bob picked him up and threw him back, it was pretty scary but funny at the same time. I had my headphones in cause I needed some rockin beats to help get me through it. I was rockin out to the BeeGees, Barry White, LCD Soundsystem, Patsy Cline and one or two other artists.

The race was hot, it had been in the high 90's all day. It then started raining, most of you would think that's good but no. The rain here makes the heat so much worse. The steam from the pavement makes the air so thick, you could cut it with a knife. I was dying! I went in to the first mile and saw my pace time was 6:30, way to fast for mile 1! So I slowed down and that was good cause it was hard to breathe. I didn't notice my other times cause I was so hot and only focused on seeing the finish line.
Coming into the last turn i was taking the inside line, coming close to a parked car, cause the inside is always shorter. Some d-bag tried to squeeze into the space that was between me and the car, all two inches that was there... He tripped me up but I didn't go down, lost a few seconds though... That was about 100 yards from the finish, the last 50 or so I just flat out sprinted. My legs were so cooked but I wanted to finish strong. It seemed like it was never going to end.

My time was 22:06 and I had an avg. pace of 7:07. I placed 5th in my age group, 20-24, and got 62nd overall! I had no clue I had done any sort of place worthy run. I wonder if I could have broken 20 min if I hadn't done that ride in the am? My goal next 5k is to break 20 min.


I wasn't hungry after the run, my stomach usually doesn't want food after I run. I was in much need of fluids though, luckily gatorade was passing out free samples of their new organic flavors. It was really good, not as sugary as the old gatorade! I also found the beer tent. I figured there weren't going to be any medals cause there were thousands of people, so beer was my medal! Except it was budweiser...


Well it was a busy day to say the least. Sorry this was such a long post, thanks for the two of you for finishing it! I plan on doing much more running since it seems that I am semi-good at it. Hopefully I can start doing this race series on weds. nights. I want to upgrade and possibly win some much need cash. Running should be good cross training for the bike and the bike should be good training for running.

Well these are two videos, one from the group ride and one post 5k one. Enjoy! Till another adventure, adios!